Molly SloanDorothy M. Arthur of Portland working on her dress made of pull tabs from soda and beer cans

Dorothy M. Arthur sparkles. Not just in a poetic, figurative way but in a literal, light glinting off 6,000 aluminum pull tabs way.

It might have something to do with the fact that she made a dress from 6,000 aluminum pull tabs.

"I have a new nickname," she says, "They call me the cancan girl."

The almost 90-year-old Arthur of Portland spent about 16 months weaving together the rings using multi-colored cording backed with a Fred Meyer shopping bags. The garment weighs over five pounds.

"I could add a train," she says, "but I don't think I could walk in it!"

She made it for a Halloween party. She's won the costume competition before.

"I made a dress out of bamboo shades," she says. "I went as a' blind' date."

Arthur says her pull tab dress fastens on with Velcro "so I can do a quick strip tease" and she plans to submit it to the Guiness World Book of Records.

"I want my name some place other than the obits," she says.

Dorothy listened patiently to my suggestion that she enter her dress in the "Junk to Funk" www.junktofunk.com fashion show. The juried event is filled with creative clothes made from recycled stuff, and I figured the mostly under 30 crowd and contestants would adore Dorothy. The deadline for entrees is October 15. The runway show November 15.

"Forget it," Dorothy says. "I'll be gone. I go to California every year for the winter."